10. After Moundou, if you sail eastward as before for two or three days, there comes next Mosullon, where it is difficult to anchor. It imports the same sorts of commodities as have been already mentioned, and also utensils of silver and others of iron but not so many, and glass-ware. It exports a vast amount of cinnamon (whence it is a port requiring ships of heavy burden) and other fragrant and aromatic products, besides tortoise-shell, but in no great quantity, and the incense called mokrotou inferior to that of Moundou, and frankincense brought from parts further distant, and ivory and myrrh though in small quantity.
(10) At a distance beyond it of two or three days’ sail occurs Mosulon, which is the name both of a mart and of a promontory. It is mentioned by Pliny (VI. 34), who says: “Further on is the bay of Abalitês, the island of Diodôrus and other islands which are desert. On the mainland, which has also deserts, occur a town Gaza [Bandar Gazim, long. 49° 13´ E.], the promontory and port of Mosylon, whence cinnamon is exported. Sesostris led his army to this point and no further. Some writers place one town of Ethiopia beyond it, Baricaza, which lies on the coast. According to Juba the Atlantic Sea begins at the promontory of Mossylon.” Juba evidently confounded this promontory with Cape Arômata, and Ptolemy, perhaps in consequence, makes its projection more considerable than it is. D’Anville and Gosselin thought Mossulon was situated near the promontory Mete, where is a river, called the Soal, which they supposed preserved traces of the name of Mossulon. This position however cannot be reconciled with the distances given in the Periplûs, which would lead us to look for it where Guesele is placed in the latest description given of this coast. Vincent on very inadequate grounds would identify it with Barbara or Berbera. [Müller places it at Bandar Barthe and Ras Antarah, long. 49° 35´ E.]
11. After leaving Mosullon, and sailing past a place called Neiloptolemaios, and past Tapatêgê and the Little Laurel-grove, you are conducted in two days to Capo Elephant. Here is a stream called Elephant River, and the Great Laurel-grove called Akannai, where, and where only, is produced the peratic frankincense. The supply is most abundant, and it is of the very finest quality.
(11) After Mosulon occurs Cape Elephant, at some distance beyond Neiloptolemaios, Tapatêgê, and the Little Laurel-grove. At the Cape is a river and the Great Laurel-grove called Akannai. Strabo in his account of this coast mentions a Neilospotamia which however can hardly be referred to this particular locality which pertains to the region through which the Khori or San Pedro flows, of which Idrisi (I. 45) thus writes: “At two journeys’ distance from Markah in the desert is a river which is subject to risings like the Nile and on the banks of which they sow dhorra.” Regarding Cape Elephant Vincent says, “it is formed by a mountain conspicuous in the Portuguese charts under the name of Mount Felix or Felles from the native term Jibel Fîl, literally, Mount Elephant. The cape [Ras Filik, 800 ft. high, lat. 11° 57´ N., long. 50° 37´ E.] is formed by the land jutting up to the North from the direction of the coast which is nearly East and West, and from its northernmost point the land falls off again South-East to Râs 'Asir—Cape Guardafui, the Arômata of the ancients. We learn from Captain Saris, an English navigator, that there is a river at Jibel Fîl. In the year 1611 he stood into a bay or harbour there which he represents as having a safe entrance for three ships abreast: he adds also that several sorts of gums very sweet in burning were still purchased by the Indian ships from Cambay which touched here for that purpose in their passage to Mocha.” The passage in the Periplûs where these places are mentioned is very corrupt. Vincent, who regards the greater Daphnôn (Laurel-grove) as a river called Akannai, says, “Neither place or distance is assigned to any of these names, but we may well allot the rivers Daphnôn and Elephant to the synonymous town and cape; and these may be represented by the modern Mete and Santa Pedro.” [Müller places Elephas at Ras el Fîl, long. 50° 37´ E., and Akannai at Ulûlah Bandar, long. 50° 56´ E., but they may be represented by Ras Ahileh, where a river enters through a lagoon in 11° 46´, and Bonah, a town with wells of good water in lat. 11° 58´ N., long. 50° 51´ E.]
12. After this, the coast now inclining to the south, succeeds the mart of Arômata, and a bluff headland running out eastward which forms the termination of the Barbarine coast. The roadstead is an open one, and at certain seasons dangerous, as the place lies exposed to the north wind. A coming storm gives warning of its approach by a peculiar prognostic, for the sea turns turbid at the bottom and changes its colour. When this occurs, all hasten for refuge to the great promontory called Tabai, which affords a secure shelter. The imports into this mart are such as have been already mentioned; while its products are cinnamon, gizeir (a finer sort of cinnamon), asuphê (an ordinary sort), fragrant gums, magla, motô (an inferior cinnamon), and frankincense.
(12) We come now to the great projection Cape Arômata, which is a continuation of Mount Elephant. It is called in Arabic Jerd Hafûn or Ras Asir; in Idrisi, Carfouna, whence the name by which it is generally known. [The South point 11° 40´ is Râs Shenarif or Jerd Hafûn; the N. point 11° 51´ is Râs 'Asir.] It formed the limit of the knowledge of this coast in the time of Strabo, by whom it is called Notou Keras or South Horn. It is described as a very high bluff point and as perpendicular as if it were scarped. [Jerd Hafûn is 2500 feet high.] The current comes round it out of the gulf with such violence that it is not to be stemmed without a brisk wind, and during the South-West Monsoon, the moment you are past the Cape to the North there is a stark calm with insufferable heat. The current below Jerd Hafûn is noticed by the Periplûs as setting to the South, and is there perhaps equally subject to the change of the monsoon. With this account of the coast from the straits to the great Cape may be compared that which has been given by Strabo, XVI. iv. 14:
“From Deirê the next country is that which bears aromatic plants. The first produces myrrh and belongs to the Ichthyophagi and Creophagi. It bears also the persea, peach or Egyptian almond, and the Egyptian fig. Beyond is Licha, a hunting ground for elephants. There are also in many places standing pools of rainwater. When these are dried up, the elephants with their trunks and tusks dig holes and find water. On this coast there are two very large lakes extending as far as the promontory Pytholaus. One of them contains salt water and is called a sea; the other fresh water and is the haunt of hippopotami and crocodiles. On the margin grows the papyrus. The ibis is seen in the neighbourhood of this place. Next is the country which produces frankincense; it has a promontory and a temple with a grove of poplars. In the inland parts is a tract along the banks of a river bearing the name of Isis, and another that of Nilus, both of which produce myrrh and frankincense. Also a lagoon filled with water from the mountains. Next the watch-post of the Lion and the port of Pythangelus. The next tract bears the false cassia. There are many tracts in succession on the sides of rivers on which frankincense grows, and rivers extending to the cinnamon country. The river which bounds this tract produces rushes (φλους) in great abundance. Then follows another river and the port of Daphnus, and a valley called Apollo’s which bears besides frankincense, myrrh and cinnamon. The latter is more abundant in places far in the interior. Next is the mountain Elephas, a mountain projecting into the sea and a creek; then follows the large harbour of Psygmus, a watering place called that of Kunocephali and the last promontory of this coast Notu-ceras (or the Southern Horn). After doubling this cape towards the south we have no more descriptions of harbours or places because nothing is known of the sea-coast beyond this point.” [Bohn’s Transl.] According to Gosselin, the Southern Horn corresponds with the Southern Cape of Bandel-caus, where commences the desert coast of Ajan, the ancient Azania.
According to the Periplûs Cape Arômata marked the termination of Barbaria and the beginning of Azania. Ptolemy however distinguishes them differently, defining the former as the interior and the latter as the sea-board of the region to which these names were applied.
The description of the Eastern Coast of Africa which now follows is carried, as has been already noticed, as far as Rhapta, a place about 6 degrees South of the Equator, but which Vincent places much farther South, identifying it with Kilwa.
The places named on this line of coast are: a promontory called Tabai, a Khersonesos; Opônê, a mart; the Little and the Great Apokopa; the Little and the Great Coast; the Dromoi or courses of Azania (first that of Serapiôn, then that of Nikôn); a number of rivers; a succession of anchorages, seven in number; the Paralaoi islands; a strait or canal; the island of Menouthias; and then Rhapta, beyond which, as the author conceived, the ocean curved round Africa until it met and amalgamated with the Hesperian or Western Ocean.
13. If, on sailing from Tabai, you follow the coast of the peninsula formed by the promontory, you are carried by the force of a strong current to another mart 400 stadia distant, called Opônê, which imports the commodities already mentioned, but produces most abundantly cinnamon, spice, motô, slaves of a very superior sort, chiefly for the Egyptian market, and tortoise-shell of small size but in large quantity and of the finest quality known.
(13) Tabai, to which the inhabitants of the Great Cape fled for refuge on the approach of a storm, cannot, as Vincent and others have supposed, be Cape Orfui, for it lay at too great a distance for the purpose. The projection is meant which the Arabs call Banna. [Or, Tabai may be identified with Râs Shenarif, lat. 11° 40´ N.] Tabai, Müller suggests, may be a corruption for Tabannai.
“From the foreign term Banna,” he says, “certain Greeks in the manner of their countrymen invented Panos or Panôn or Panô or Panôna Kômê. Thus in Ptolemy (I. 17 and IV. 7) after Arômata follows Panôn Kômê, which Mannert has identified with Benna. [Khor Banneh is a salt lake, with a village, inside Râs Ali Beshgêl, lat. 11° 9´ N., long. 51° 9´ E.] Stephen of Byzantium may be compared, who speaks of Panos as a village on the Red Sea which is also called Panôn.” The conjecture, therefore, of Letronnius that Panôn Kômê derived its name from the large apes found there, called Pânes, falls to the ground. Opônê was situated on the Southern shores of what the Periplûs calls a Khersonese, which can only be the projection now called Ras Hafûn or Cape D’Orfui (lat. 10° 25´ N.). Ptolemy (I. 17) gives the distance of Opônê from Panôn Kômê at a 6 days’ journey, from which according to the Periplûs it was only 400 stadia distant. That the text of Ptolemy is here corrupt cannot be doubted, for in his tables the distance between the two places is not far from that which is given in the Periplûs. Probably, as Müller conjectures, he wrote ὁδόν ἡμέρας (a day’s journey) which was converted into ὁδόν ἡμερ. ϛ´ (a six-days’ journey).
14. Ships set sail from Egypt for all these ports beyond the straits about the month of July—that is, Epiphi. The same markets are also regularly supplied with the products of places far beyond them—Ariakê and Barugaza. These products are—
Σῖτος —Corn.